Oklahoma History Center combing through Kerr-McGee collection

It has taken several months to complete, but the Oklahoma History Center has put together a collection of one of the state’s giant enterprises. The Kerr-McGee collection, which took several moving truckloads to acquire, features everything from the rare to the eccentric. It is a collection that not only tells the story one of Oklahoma’s historical companies, but of Oklahoma history as well.

The center acquired more than 182,000 documents, 190,000 photographs, 823 films and videos, 150 volumes of library material and countless oil industry artifacts. Everything from the original incorporation papers to a can of oil now sits on the history center’s shelves.

DONATIONBob Blackburn, executive director of the history center, said it is the largest corporate donation the center has ever received. And a collection he desperately wanted. Blackburn told Oklahoma Gazette he started calling former Kerr-McGee chief executive officer Luke Corbett the first day it was announced the company had been sold to a Texas oil company.

The acquisition of the long-time Oklahoma oil giant took place in June of 2006. Houston-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp. purchased the company for $16.4 billion in cash and moved operations down to Texas.

SandRidge Energy Corp. bought Kerr-McGee’s former office buidling in downtown Oklahoma City and moved in nearly a year ago.

For more details of the collection, how the history center obtained it and plans for a future exhibit, read next week’s Gazette. “Scott Cooper